After a couple months of use, I'm actually finding the 5 to be just on the cusp of being too narrow and too thin. One-handed operation means I have to take special care, lest it slip from my hand. I'm not some arbiter of tech trends, but I can't see a case for an iPhone getting smaller, if anything I'd like to see one that's wider.

One problem with such polls is you are only talking about diagonal size, omitting the aspect ratio.For example a 4" 3:2 screen is shorter but wider than a 4" 16:9 screen and larger in term of surface. but as wide as a 4.5" 16:9 screen and way smaller otherwise.I see for the 3.5" and 4" options, but it can't be enough to talk about only one measure (linear or surface) for describing a 2D surface.Your percentages are about the diagonal size, and should be about the surface (old thread) to better reflect the gain or loss with another screen size. From 3.5" 3:2 to 4.5" 16:9, you already gain 50% of surface, that is, content (well, at best).

Then, you don't just buy a phone for its screen size or its Apple on the back, but for what it can achieve. Has it apps? What kind? You can't compare with so much variation in sizes proposed; I hardly imagine same phone apps on different phones from 2" to 6", even less if in one way or another they'd have to look the same. I'd break it in three categories: under 3.5", 3.5" to 5", and 5" and more.

Well, yes, a square screen gives you the most surface (and pixels) for a given diagonal size.

But I think we can assume that new phones will have an aspect ratio in the 3:2 to 16:9 range, except maybe if the screens are really small.

In principle you can run all apps at all sizes. Obviously stuff like browsing the web on a watch-size screen isn't great. I assume that people include that consideration when voting for sizes that appeal to them.

I think the results show that few people are interested in smaller phones. Which makes sense, because a big screen is very useful when using the screen, and few people have pockets but only ones that are too small to put an iPhone in.

I'm guessing we're not going back to anything smaller than the pre-5 iPhone until phones can be made small enough to fit in a wrist watch (with more than 3 minutes of battery life). And then wrist watches will be huge. :-)

The way that Apple has created less-expensive iPhones up to this point has been to continue selling the previous-gen models as discounts off their original prices. The problem with that approach is that whenever there's a shift in hardware features – 4" display, Lightning connector, etc. – it takes 2 years to filter down to all models, during which there's a prolonged transition period.

Imagine something with iPhone 4 internals, a 4" non-retina display, and a Lightning connector, in a plastic case and with a small amount of storage (8 GB). Less expensive, but the same display size and I/O as an iPhone 5, so there's no "fragmentation" with cases or accessories.

I'm missing the 3.3" option. 3" is too small, I had an SonyEricsson Xperia Mini for almost a year with a 3" screen, and it's just sligthly too small for comfortable typing. The Sony Xperia Ray, on the other hand, was a much nicer experience with it's 3.3" screen, while still noticeably more compact than the 3.5" iPhone.

A 4-4.3" panel, with a smaller bezel. The 5 is great, but I would like the top and bottom bezels to be a bit smaller. Either shrinking the handset, or letting the screen grow a bit more in the same frame.

Whatever 1280x720 works out to with the current dpi, or 5" at 1080p. A switch to 16:10 wouldn't be terrible either, but the current odd res 4" screen size was a stupid, stupid, 256mb iPad 1 level move because it was too small to appease market trends while simultaneously annoying the 3.5" old guard.

And I'm fully on-board with the shrink the bezels camp, though I'm not sure how the iconic home button would work as it just fits now.

I could see doing a super-slim 3:2 old-school retina size too, though I think it's a niche market compared to the mainstream bigger is better one and would require Apple to move onto multiple phones rather than just price adjust old models.

the current odd res 4" screen size was a stupid, stupid, 256mb iPad 1 level move because it was too small to appease market trends while simultaneously annoying the 3.5" old guard.

It keeps app compatibility easy, with the same width and pixel density. 720 would have required a lot more app adjustment. Do you think they'll have to adjust it again any time soon?

Well, yes, obviously. The iPhone has had a relatively simple target for developers, making any change will inconvenience people so when you do make a change you'd better make sure you do it right the first time because the pain of adapting is only going to get worse as you add more devices. Did you think 1132x640 is the resolution of the forever?

I don't see that Apple has any choice but to offer a larger screen phone eventually (though that doesn't mean they wont or shouldn't offer a smaller one as well). They could just enbiggen the pixels, but part of the advantage of a bigger screen is seeing more content and let's face it, 1132x640 isn't all that great for web content. So they'll go bigger and developers will be left with a choice, incur the cost to support more devices or support just the new shiny and the older 960x640 resolution because it works for everybody (just with an annoying letterbox on the iPhone 5, and maybe 5S). Now I expect a lot of developers will support all resolutions, but it never had to be a choice because Apple could have gone with a more forward thinking strategy in the first place. 1280x720 would have been optimal for 2012 because it would have provided more content area, given them more space for a bigger battery without going thicker, made the screen itself bigger (say 4.3" or whatever at 326dpi, not going to work out the math) to compete with the androids, and been relatively future proof for the next few years. Say they needed to go to 5" because thats what the market demands, without changing resolutions again it's going to be a higher dpi at 1280x720 than 1132x640. Or say Apple goes with 1080p on some future handset, that's 1.5x 720p, easy scaling. 1132x640 was expedient, but it was a dumb move.

I don't see that Apple has any choice but to offer a larger screen phone eventually

Can you qualify this statement? Apple has said fairly firmly that they believe that the phone should be addressable with one hand (thumb), which the 5 is already on the border of being too tall. 720 offers no real benefit over the current size (both being 16:9), aside from being slightly larger. Which would have been nice, but at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of apps already developed.

Why not? I find the extra pixels really useful when reading sites where the text is almost the entire width of the browser canvas, there's significantly less squinting than on the iPhone 4.

squiggy wrote:

1132x640 was expedient, but it was a dumb move.

It's 1136 pixels.

The interesting aspect to the choice to grow the height of the screen from 960 to 1136 pixels is that this way, you can letterbox old apps without scaling. After half a decade of a toe in the water with fractional scaling for resolution independence on the Mac, Apple decided that 2 x scaling was the way to solve this issue. That's disappointing, but somewhat understandable, as you end up with tons of issues if you want to do vector scaling. For instance, when you draw a dot at pixel 1,1 and then one at pixel 2,1 they're right next to each other. Scale by 1.5 x and now there's a gap between them. And with bitmap scaling you sacrifice some sharpness.

I think where they made a mistake was with the iPad mini. Because they shrunk the screen by 18% but kept the number of pixels the same, the resolution had to go up, probably making it impossible to use a high resolution screen like the iPad 3/4. If instead they had shrunk the number of pixels to 1704x1280 or something they'd have a 2.2 megapixel rather than a 3 megapixel screen that shares the pixel density of the iPad 3/4, which could have worked.

Note though that it really doesn't matter than the iPhone 5 screen is 1136x640 and not 1280x720, as under normal viewing conditions you can't tell the difference anyway.

The interesting aspect to the choice to grow the height of the screen from 960 to 1136 pixels is that this way, you can letterbox old apps without scaling.

You could do that with any larger resolution, and with the best results of course with a screen at the same pixel density.The point to choose 1136x640 is not especially there, it's for the ease to port 960x640 apps in the state of iOS6 and then apps, and for the argument of keeping the same small physical width, as keeping the same pixel density and width in pixels.They had no really other choice. And I quite agree with squiggy's last post.

iljitsch wrote:

After half a decade of a toe in the water with fractional scaling for resolution independence on the Mac, Apple decided that 2 x scaling was the way to solve this issue. That's disappointing, but somewhat understandable, as you end up with tons of issues if you want to do vector scaling.

It was not really a seek for resolution independance. It was rather the way to solve the problem of how to use higher definition screens the best way, to enhance readability of fonts, definition of images or videos, and everything else. All that while keeping easily app compatibility (auto-)porting.Yes, that's resolution independance because a higher resolution screen still gives the same workspace and everything still appears at the same size, but that only because your have 2x pixel density with 2x resolution conjointly, and the OS dealing with it accordingly.The point was exactly to have 4 full pixels per what-used-to-be-pixels (now only called points) of the initial resolution. The solution was obviously to get built and to use screens of the same size with 4x more pixels exactly.The issue was not the resolution independance, it was the solution, in this very particular way to do it.

iljitsch wrote:

I think where they made a mistake was with the iPad mini. Because they shrunk the screen by 18% but kept the number of pixels the same, the resolution had to go up, probably making it impossible to use a high resolution screen like the iPad 3/4. If instead they had shrunk the number of pixels to 1704x1280 or something they'd have a 2.2 megapixel rather than a 3 megapixel screen that shares the pixel density of the iPad 3/4, which could have worked.

How would it have worked? IOS can't deal with different resolutions. You'd need to scale apps, and then have the same usable workspace as on the larger iPad, with ugly scaling artefacts.And not sure hardware allowing the current thin form factor of the mini (battery life, performances) could drive such a higher resolution, and permanently scale what it displays.That clearly was not possible in the state of iOS6, you'd have had to be able to use this smaller screen (with the same pixel density as the larger screen) as a smaller screen, with a smaller workspace. I tried to discuss that question last summer in this old thread. We can't exclude the situation couldn't change by the time the mini goes retina, and if iOS evolution alllow this. By the end of the year to know? The 1024x768 iPad mini could be only a transition device (app compatibility/technical issues), a bit like I see the iPhone 5 1136x640 resolution a transition before they fix the software to allow larger resolution with easy app support.

iljitsch wrote:

Note though that it really doesn't matter than the iPhone 5 screen is 1136x640 and not 1280x720, as under normal viewing conditions you can't tell the difference anyway.

If you make a 4" screen, yes, you don't have really more usable workspace by increasing the resolution, and then increasing the pixel density too. And your eyes/brain can't resolve the difference.He meant I suppose 1280x720@326 ppi and then 4.5", not 4". And then a larger workspace, especially wider.

In the other thread about a speculative iPhone mini, I posted an hypothetical strategy Apple could follow with two iPhone sizes (not sure which thread is the more adapted now for this discussion):

Spoiler: show

Apple also has to better support multi-resolution on iOS, if they plan to continue on a long term to sell different sizes of iPhone (and iPad),I don't know if AutoLayout last year on iOS was a first step in that direction, but they will need to fix this if they are not just transitionning and stopping to 16:9 screens at 326 ppi.

If they are able to put in dev's hands tools to build UIs for their apps capable to adapt (not scale) to different resolutions and aspect ratios, for a given pixel density and then in a given range of size (respectively pocket 3.5"-5" and tablet 8"-10"), it could make a lot more of things possible in the future:

- a small plastic iPhone 3.5" 3:2 (at 326 ppi, 960x640), made as cheap as possible (under $400) on the basis of the internal of a 4S or a 5,- a large high-end iPhone 4.5" 16:9 (at 326 ppi, 1280x720), the natural evolution of the 5 in larger with all the new stuffs,- transitionnally, the 4" iPhone 5 eventually still sold in the middle for the next year only (different iPhone models too close in size is probably not in their plans)

(And on a further iteration, they could switch to retina 3x screens for their two iPhone models with ~500 ppi screens)

- and incidentally on the iPad front, when battery and screen tech will make it possible for the mini, both iPad models could switch to 326 ppi screens, at 2048x1536 and 2560x1920.

Without modifications to iOS, discussions on the diagonal size of a new iPhone are hard to imagine.

If instead they had shrunk the number of pixels to 1704x1280 or something they'd have a 2.2 megapixel rather than a 3 megapixel screen that shares the pixel density of the iPad 3/4, which could have worked.

How would it have worked? IOS can't deal with different resolutions. You'd need to scale apps, and then have the same usable workspace as on the larger iPad, with ugly scaling artefacts.

This is how they do it on the new high resolution laptops. If you set your screen to a different fake resolution than the native fake resolution, everything is still drawn at 2 x by the software, and then scaled up or down to fit on the screen.

With ~ 110 PPI resolutions we used previously, this is problematic because you lose some sharpness when scaling bitmaps. But because you start with such an incredibly sharp image, at 220+ PPI this is much less of an issue.

There are no scaling artifacts, by the way. You just take a hit in sharpness.

chleuasme wrote:

And not sure hardware allowing the current thin form factor of the mini (battery life, performances) could drive such a higher resolution

That's possible.

chleuasme wrote:

and permanently scale what it displays.

Not a big deal, except perhaps for games running at 2048x1536.

chleuasme wrote:

I see the iPhone 5 1136x640 resolution a transition before they fix the software.

This is how they do it on the new high resolution laptops. If you set your screen to a different fake resolution than the native fake resolution, everything is still drawn at 2 x by the software, and then scaled up or down to fit on the screen.

With ~ 110 PPI resolutions we used previously, this is problematic because you lose some sharpness when scaling bitmaps. But because you start with such an incredibly sharp image, at 220+ PPI this is much less of an issue.

Read the linked thread, you'd see I was also giving that solution, but only in transition, in my hypothetical 1600x1200 mini iPad.But you can't imagine that as a satisfying only solution.You also can't really compare iOS and OS X: no sub-pixel rendering on iOS to smooth scaling of non-native resolutions as on OS X could make things not so good?I dare post also a link to another thread in another forum on this particular discussion: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread. ... st16386215

Also, I don't follow how this scale down destructive solution could be an acceptable solution for an iPad mini for you, while you refuse it for an iPhone at 1.5x, just when 1.5x give the best non-integer upscaling results. And in fact, that wouldn't be 1.5x the retina (actually it's 2x) resolution but 3x the original resolution (and then 9 pixels per point).

I didn't reject fractional scaling, Apple did. Which is really too bad, because I would love to scale my current Mac's display so everything is a bit bigger (maybe 10 - 20 %) without loss of sharpness. What would be especially great is per-application scaling.

The trouble is, application developers aren't going to implement this properly until users need it, and Apple doesn't want to release hardware that needs this until all important applications support it. So Apple went with the 2 x thing instead, which works better without explicit application support, although I understand that on the Mac unsupported apps on the high rez display can be pretty miserable.

In any event, high resolution displays are finally here, and my next laptop will have one. I'm still not sure I want or need an iPad, but for sure I'm not getting one with a low resolution screen.

All this talk of an cheaper, unsubsidized iPhone Mini is nonsense. Right now you can buy an iPhone 4 (with an 800 MHz single core A4, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB ROM, a 3.5" 960x640 screen, and no HSPA+ or LTE) for $450 unlocked or a Nexus 4 (with a 1.5 GHz quad core Krait, 2 GB RAM, 8 GB ROM, 4.7" 1280x768 screen, and HSPA+) for $300.

For Apple to match the price point of the Nexus 4, they'd either have to cut their profit margins to match Google, LG, Samsung, et al, which they'll never do, or release something with iPhone 3GS level hardware, which will never sell. The whole issue is a non-starter.

Imagine something with iPhone 4 internals, a 4" non-retina display, and a Lightning connector, in a plastic case and with a small amount of storage (8 GB). Less expensive, but the same display size and I/O as an iPhone 5, so there's no "fragmentation" with cases or accessories.

And who exactly would buy a phone in 2013 with a 480x320 display?

ant1pathy wrote:

Do you think they'll have to adjust it again any time soon?

Yes, if Apple doesn't want to fall further behind Google in market share. 1920x1080 will be standard on Android phones this year.

Really? That will be screens on all or most new Android handset?And what will be standard in the hands of Android users by the end of 2013?Same question about Android versions. Isn't Android 5 coming in the first semester?Or by standard you don't mean the majority of users?

avenger512 wrote:

For Apple to match the price point of the Nexus 4

It can't be in their plans to sell hardware with no margin. Why would they even try to sell something that cheap?Now, if they manage to make a cheaper 3.5" iPhone (but better than the 4 for 2013 standards) sold at $350-$400, while their top of the line model is starting around $650, it's already another story

I don't want or need a fully-capable smartphone when I already have an iPad mini, and on my iPhone today, I mostly just use a handful of apps. I could see Apple making slimmed-down versions of these common tasks that are good enough. Text input would be a challenge, but not impossible.

But, the biggest challenge is that making a small phone is in some ways harder than making a big one--and trying to cram a lot of functionality into a tiny case with adequate battery might result in a more expensive phone, not a cheaper one.

I started thinking about a really small phone a bit. I think ultimately we'll end up with phones that you can wear around your wrist like a watch. This of course brings up three issues:

talking / listening to it

text entry

battery life

I think these are all solvable to some degree, although compromises need to be made.

You could of course talk to your wrist and have your wrist talk back when making phonecalls, but this is less than ideal. Wired or bluetooth headphones would be helpful.

Text entry would be problematic. I don't think you can make a watch-shaped device large enough for decent typing. Of course voice recognition can take the edge off. A stylus may help a bit, but probably not all that much. But what about morse code for text entry? You could even have a sensor in the wrist band so you could flex your hand to send messages. (Tapping the screen is probably faster, though.) And with a silent vibrator in there messages could be delivered inconspicuously in morse code, too.

Last but not least, there's battery life. Obviously the battery would be tiny compared to existing phones. It helps that the screen is small and there's not too many apps (because the screen is so small). But even then, it would be hard to get through the day on one charge.

However, what if you're carrying that iPad with you most of the time anyway? Simply transfer the phone function to another device in the area and the watchphone can go into deep sleep, with only an energy efficient bluetooth link remaining active.

I'm sure it wouldn't be long until home routers come with bluetooth that let them offload the monitoring of the cell network for incoming calls.

Actually, you know what would be nice? A purely over-the-top phone solution from Apple, that didn't blow away your battery life by keeping a constant data connection (like Skype does, for instance).

Then, you could just "sign in" to your phone on any device (iPad, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch....) and you could have phone features even on a wifi-only device. In this imagined reality you wouldn't have an "iPhone" so much as really nice iPod touch with wireless data. This would allow people with preference for different screen sizes to have them without to sort of tradeoffs that we've been discussing in threads like this.

Imagine something with iPhone 4 internals, a 4" non-retina display, and a Lightning connector, in a plastic case and with a small amount of storage (8 GB). Less expensive, but the same display size and I/O as an iPhone 5, so there's no "fragmentation" with cases or accessories.

And who exactly would buy a phone in 2013 with a 480x320 display?

Plenty of people. They were still selling the 320x480 iPhone 3GS as recently as September 2012, until the iPhone 5 went on sale. Obviously, enough people were buying them.

And if the whole point of this is to bring down the starting cost of an (off-contract) iPhone, by definition it would be targeting people who are more concerned with price than specs.

Actually, you know what would be nice? A purely over-the-top phone solution from Apple, that didn't blow away your battery life by keeping a constant data connection (like Skype does, for instance).

Then, you could just "sign in" to your phone on any device (iPad, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch....) and you could have phone features even on a wifi-only device. In this imagined reality you wouldn't have an "iPhone" so much as really nice iPod touch with wireless data. This would allow people with preference for different screen sizes to have them without to sort of tradeoffs that we've been discussing in threads like this.

Not that the carriers would ever permit this.

Actually, I think if you're on a FaceTime call and you switch to another app, the call continues over audio only. It's effectively VoIP, only there's no option to initiate or receive audio-only FaceTime calls.

Apple could totally do it, though. You think the carriers would have permitted iMessage if Apple told them about it in advance? It's a drop-in replacement to SMS that circumvents the carrier's network and text fees, integrated directly into the iPhone's messaging app and enabled by default. You don't even have to know that iMessage exists in order to use it – just send a text, and if the phone on the other end supports it as well, no SMS charges!

Actually, you know what would be nice? A purely over-the-top phone solution from Apple, that didn't blow away your battery life by keeping a constant data connection (like Skype does, for instance).

Then, you could just "sign in" to your phone on any device (iPad, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch....) and you could have phone features even on a wifi-only device. In this imagined reality you wouldn't have an "iPhone" so much as really nice iPod touch with wireless data. This would allow people with preference for different screen sizes to have them without to sort of tradeoffs that we've been discussing in threads like this.

Not that the carriers would ever permit this.

Actually, I think if you're on a FaceTime call and you switch to another app, the call continues over audio only. It's effectively VoIP, only there's no option to initiate or receive audio-only FaceTime calls.

Apple could totally do it, though. You think the carriers would have permitted iMessage if Apple told them about it in advance? It's a drop-in replacement to SMS that circumvents the carrier's network and text fees, integrated directly into the iPhone's messaging app and enabled by default. You don't even have to know that iMessage exists in order to use it – just send a text, and if the phone on the other end supports it as well, no SMS charges!

iMessages/Facetimes appear to come from phone numbers or email addresses but they really don't. Those are just used as arbitrary user names, similar to signing into a website with an email address. (WhatsApp uses phone numbers like this, too.) This is how you can receive iMessages that are sent to your "phone number" on your Mac--they actually weren't sent to your phone number in the first place, but rather to your iMessage designator that so happens to share the same digits as your phone number.

So something like this Apple can implement. But Apple could not become a proper phone company with the ability to place and receive phone calls to any phone number, and to receive phone calls from anywhere, without becoming a full-fledged member of the PSTN. It could do this, too, but not without broadcasting its intentions far and wide.

But Apple could not become a proper phone company with the ability to place and receive phone calls to any phone number, and to receive phone calls from anywhere, without becoming a full-fledged member of the PSTN. It could do this, too, but not without broadcasting its intentions far and wide.

That's easy enough. But the iMessage model is that they use their own stuff over the internet end-to-end when both devices are made by Apple, and use the regular service (SMS) when the other end doesn't do iMessage. There are no gateways from iMessage to SMS.

I don't think it makes sense for Apple to step into the VoIP business and sell (give away?) minutes towards regular phone numbers. That doesn't buy them anything, and although that's an easy and cheap service to deliver, doing so for a hundred million iPhone users adds up. And there is just no way to make calls over the internet consistently reliable and high quality.

However, there are still some shoes to drop in this area, as Apple has way too many overlapping IM/audio/video conferencing services.

But what about morse code for text entry? You could even have a sensor in the wrist band so you could flex your hand to send messages.

Or even better, if you could control your blood circulation and pressure, you would be able to directly send binary datas with that signal, or even inject code, through captors on your wrist-watch. You'd just need to learn some compression algorithm to efficiently pulse your bytes. And eventually encrypt them too for confidentiality toward potential spies only needing to watch your carotid or enter in contact with your skin

But Apple could not become a proper phone company with the ability to place and receive phone calls to any phone number, and to receive phone calls from anywhere, without becoming a full-fledged member of the PSTN. It could do this, too, but not without broadcasting its intentions far and wide.

That's easy enough. But the iMessage model is that they use their own stuff over the internet end-to-end when both devices are made by Apple, and use the regular service (SMS) when the other end doesn't do iMessage. There are no gateways from iMessage to SMS.

I don't think it makes sense for Apple to step into the VoIP business and sell (give away?) minutes towards regular phone numbers. That doesn't buy them anything, and although that's an easy and cheap service to deliver, doing so for a hundred million iPhone users adds up. And there is just no way to make calls over the internet consistently reliable and high quality.

However, there are still some shoes to drop in this area, as Apple has way too many overlapping IM/audio/video conferencing services.

Well, as I envision it, the only "Internet" part of a trip would be the last mile to the device. There's no inherent reason why, on mobile, such calls would be any less reliable than voice calls are today--the only reason sometimes you can get voice and not data is how carriers have configured their bands. The back-end would use the same private, IP-based but non-Internet, networks that calls are routed over now.

A "VoiceTime" app that worked only with other Apple devices, and just on the best-efforts Internet, would definitely be a cool thing. But it wouldn't be enough to actually disrupt the mobile handset model--Apple (or Google or anyone) actually delivering a usable device-independent VoIP solution would. (I'm actually surprised that Google Voice is *still* just a weird halfway service.)

there is just no way to make calls over the internet consistently reliable and high quality.

Well, as I envision it, the only "Internet" part of a trip would be the last mile to the device. There's no inherent reason why, on mobile, such calls would be any less reliable than voice calls are today--the only reason sometimes you can get voice and not data is how carriers have configured their bands.

You'd be surprised at the amount of stuff inside mobile networks that's there specifically to make voice work better. If we ignore 2G because of its poor data performance, 3G can support voice over packets reasonably well, but you need to keep the VoIP packets separate from regular data packets. So as long as you're going to use a special channel for voice packets anyway, why not use the voice-optimized path through the 3G network?

In general, it's a shame that we're killing the voice network and replacing it with unreliable crap like VoIP just to save a few cents. Mark my words, we'll live to regret that.